Officials look for dentist who may have treated mummified woman before her death

Mar. 12, 2014

Police tape surrounds the house on Savanna Drive on March 6, where a woman in her 40s was found dead in the backseat of her Jeep in her garage in Pontiac, where she may have been as long as six years. / Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press

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Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Officials are asking dentists for help in positively identifying the mummified remains of a woman found a week ago in the garage of a Pontiac home.

The Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office asked any dentist who has treated Pia Farrenkopf to call its office at 248-858-5097.

“Our goal is to forensically identify the deceased woman as soon as possible so that her family can have closure and she can receive a proper and dignified burial,” Oakland County Medical Examiner Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic said in a statement released to the media. “If we can acquire her dental records, we can identify her within a day of receiving those records.”

The mummified remains — believed to be those of Farrenkopf — were discovered in the back seat of a Jeep in the garage of Farrenkopf’s house on Savanna Drive by a contractor sent to the foreclosed home by the bank. She has ties to Massachusetts and would have been 49 if she were still alive.

Farrenkopf, who has family in the Boston area, is believed to have been dead since at least early 2009, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.

The woman whose remains were found in the garage had quite a bit of dental work done in the past, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office.

“Without dental records, the Medical Examiner will have to collect DNA samples from Pia Farrenkopf’s family in Boston and send them to Texas for comparison to the DNA from the mummified remains,” a news release issued today said.

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That process could take months.

Family members said they tried for years to reach Farrenkopf, who was self-employed, worked in finance, traveled the world and valued her privacy.

Farrenkopf’s last known job was as a contractor with now-defunct Chrysler Financial, investigators have said. She worked there until September 2008.

Officials have said there was no trauma to the woman’s body, and the key was in the ignition, but partially out, and the ignition was not on. The Jeep still had gas in the tank, adding to the mystery of what happened and when.

Investigators have subpoenas in process for financial records, but Sheriff Bouchard said everything they have seen so far doesn’t show any financial transactions for five years, other than automatic withdrawals from an account set up to pay her bills. That account once had $54,000.

Neighbors said they thought Farrenkopf, who lived alone, had moved or was traveling. She didn’t receive mail in her mailbox, had her bills automatically deducted from a bank account, and a neighbor mowed the lawn, so there was little to raise suspicions.